You were probably pretty fired up when social media first came along. It was an exciting new approach, a lot of buzz was circulating about it, everybody was eager. But now one of the key questions a lot of folks are asking themselves right now is: “If social media is such a powerful tool, why did my first campaign fail?”
We analyzed the most common mistakes people make when they run a social media campaign and created this checklist to see where you might be going wrong.
You didn’t measure the results of your campaign.
Interestingly, this is an all-too-common problem. You set the measurements: mentions, volume, trends, word clouds, geography, gender, age, and more. But it’s essential to measure the information popping up online, gain insight into patterns and relationships behind it, and finally look at the impact—what specific, measurable actions were taken because of your social media campaign.
You didn’t set clear objectives.
Some companies create a Facebook page or a YouTube channel before they think through their objectives. Is it to build awareness? To drive traffic to a landing page on their site? To give people a channel to make comments and record their frustrations?
You thought social media was only about Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube.
Of course, social media is about having many conversations across as many platforms as you can manage. The more opportunities you provide customers to engage with you, the more successful your campaign will be.
You didn’t know how to set up a landing page.
One basic model of social media success looks like this: prospect → social media channel → landing page on Web site → new customer. If you don’t have a landing page on your Web site that’s designed to convert prospects to customers, you won’t be able to track your return on investment (ROI). No ROI, no social media campaign (or, rather, no effective social media campaign).
You didn’t remarket to customer prospects.
Most prospects who visit your landing page won’t become customers. In fact, the vast majority won’t. But that doesn’t mean they’re never going to buy. It just means they aren’t going to buy at that time. Keep them in your pipeline— you’ll get them someday if you remarket to them.
You didn’t know how to turn a social media campaign into a sales and marketing campaign.
Social media isn’t just about building awareness. It’s about turning prospects into customers. Don’t be shy about nudging prospects along the sales funnel. They expect it, to a certain degree.
You sat on the sidelines.
True story: We were in contact with a creative director at a major advertising agency a while back who said, “This whole Internet thing is just a flash in the pan, and I can’t wait for it to blow over.” We’re serious, he said that. Our point? You don’t want to be that guy.
You downplayed the importance of social media.
Some people don’t sit on the sidelines as much as they participate without passion. That’s almost as bad as sitting on the sidelines. You don’t want to be that guy, either.
You thought you could do social media in ten minutes a day.
Social media is a little like a marriage: You won’t have a successful marriage if you plan on spending just ten minutes a day having a dialogue with your spouse. The same holds true for a successful social media campaign.
You thought social media was like traditional marketing.
Social media and traditional media have a lot of similarities. But they have a lot of differences, too. Your job is to embrace those differences. Don’t be scared—social media won’t hurt you.
How Many Did You Checked Off?
Of course there are more ways your social media campaign might have failed, including a few out of your control, but it’s important to take a step back now and ask—what did I just check off this list?
Jamie Turner is Chief Content Officer for The 60 Second Marketer, an online magazine providing resources for marketers and entrepreneurs. For 20+ years, he has helped firms like AT+T, Cartoon Network, CNN, Motorola, and Coca-Cola grow sales and revenue through high-impact marketing. A frequent media guest and speaker, he was recently profiled in Advertising and Promotion, a leading marketing text.
Reshma Shah, Ph.D., Asst. Professor of Marketing at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, has worked in procurement for IBM, litigation consulting for Price Waterhouse, strategic planning for Unilever, and account management for Leo Burnett.
Adapted from How to Make Money with Social Media: An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D. Copyright 2011. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as FT Press.
Wayne Liew is the Founder of 
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Social Media and Marketing work together wonderfully as long as they stay in balance. People know when you just want to market to them. Trust must be built by providing a beneficial relationship with people. That is the “social” in social media. We also can’t be so social that we forget to market the product in fear of loosing a friend.
Great checklist. The last part would be the one that catch my attention. Yes you are right, social media is a revolutionary thing that happen in our time. Perhaps, some traditional and basic tactics may work it, but we still need to continuously innovate. That is why we should also commit to devote in it and not only invest a little time for it.
Too many times you hear “that guy” saying that social media is a fad. It’s proven that it is here to stay and has really revolutionized our industry
What a great list of tools! As you mentioned, you can’t spend a few minutes a day on your social campaigns and expect to produce significant results. It takes work and if used correctly can have an incredible payoff. A couple of other pieces of advice I would offer would be to monitor conversations with subscribers carefully and address their needs rapidly. It’s important to know when to move the conversation off the platform to assure your other fans that all is well on your social space. Monitoring conversations on your page becomes especially important when in the midst of major marketing campaign. Thanks for your insights!
Lauren
Twitter: @Volusion
http://www.volusion.com
Great take on this topic. I especially like the landing page tip. Some people think their homepage is a landing page. It’s not!
An interesting checklist although, what with it being a recession, some ventures are doomed before they even start. Having just started using social media myself I can see the benefits but some people on it are a bit clique. “Go away you noob/troll etc.” It’s not a very mature world at times.
It take labor and if used properly can have an hard to believe payoff. A couple of other pieces of advice I would offer would be to check conversation with subscribers carefully and speak to their wants quickly. It’s significant to know when to move the discussion off the display place to promise your other fans that all is well on your communal space.
Actually, the first point mentioned about “not measuring the results” is a much bigger problem than people realise, as this is something that many businesses don’t do in ALL their marketing.
For example, many businesses will hand out flyer, but they won’t use any means of tracking the results, the easiest way of course is to use a specific coupon code that the customer quotes, so you know which source your traffic is coming from. Without doing this, you won’t know how effective the campaign was. Then, you need to look at whether that prospect who came from twitter, or facebook or whatever was converted into a customer or not.
Testing, tracking and then tweaking is the secret to making any business as best as it can.
Thanks,
Phil